McClintock's work with junior scientists and graduate
students persuaded her that she had finally found
colleagues who appreciated her work. She had given up
trying to convince geneticists that they should pay
attention to her theories on genetic control. As she wrote
to the British geneticist J. R. S. Fincham in 1973, "I
stopped publishing detailed reports long ago when I
realized, and acutely, the extent of disinterest and lack
of confidence in the conclusions I was drawing from the
studies." She announced she would follow her own research
rather than seek the approval of her peers. As she wrote to
maize geneticist Oliver Nelson in 1973, "Over the years I
have found that it is difficult if not impossible to bring
to consciousness of another person the nature of his tacit
assumptions when, by some special experiences, I have been
made aware of them. This became painfully evident to me in
my attempts during the 1950s to convince geneticists that
the action of genes had to be and was controlled. It is now
equally painful to recognize the fixity of assumptions that
many persons hold on the nature of controlling elements in
maize and the manners of their operation. One must await
the right time for conceptual change."

McClintock's work, never forgotten, came back to the fore
in the 1960s. Her theories of genetic control bore formal
similarities to the theories of genetic regulation put
forth by French geneticists François Jacob and Jacques
Monod. But her discovery of genetic transposition seemed
much more prescient and important. Beginning in the early
1970s, molecular biologists found transposition in bacteria
and viruses, and later in yeast. Transposition was involved
in the transfer among bacteria of genes conferring
resistance to antibiotics, in certain kinds of viral
infections, and in other basic biological processes. Links
were made between transposition and cancer, immunology, and
genetic engineering. Transposition, now described at the
molecular level, seemed to be everywhere. The promise of
genetic engineering in the 1970s and 1980s--a laboratory
version of the research McClintock practiced with maize
from her garden--also catalyzed interest in her early work.

In May 1971, President Richard M. Nixon awarded McClintock
the National Medal of Science. "I have read [explanations
of your scientific work] and I want you to know that I do
not understand them," Nixon confessed to the scientists to
whom he had awarded the medals. "But I want you to know,
too, that because I do not understand them, I realize how
enormously important their contributions are to this
Nation. That, to me, is the nature of science to the
unsophisticated people."

In a few short years, McClintock received institutional
recognition of her work. In 1978, she was given the
Rosenstiel Award for Basic Medical Research from Brandeis
University. McClintock became the first recipient of a
MacArthur Foundation Grant, now known informally as the
"genius" grant in 1981. In that same year, she was also
given the Albert and Mary Lasker Award. In 1983, at the age
of 81, she received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine for her work on "mobile genetic elements," that
is, for her discovery of genetic transposition. McClintock
was the first woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in
that category. "Many people have asked me how I responded
to the obvious negative attitude of others," she wrote in
unpublished notes that she prepared for her Nobel
acceptance speech. "At first I was surprised that the
phenomenon [of controlling elements] was so unacceptable...
If they had had the same fantastic experiences with the
maize plant as I was having, they would have drawn the same
conclusion. The evidence and logic were incontestable."
Viewers can read these unpublished notes in the Documents
section.

During her final years, McClintock spent much time in the
spotlight, especially after Evelyn Fox Keller's 1983 book,
A Feeling for the Organism, brought McClintock's story to
the public. She remained a regular presence in the Cold
Spring Harbor community, and gave informal talks on mobile
genetic elements and the history of genetics research for
the benefit of junior scientists, many of whom were
youngsters when she retired in 1967. Viewers can see the
original notes for these talks in the Documents section.

McClintock died near Cold Spring Harbor, in Huntington, New
York on September 2, 1992, at the age of 90.